While Bungie’s upcoming PvEvP extraction shooter Marathon might be hitting a market on the brink of saturation against titles like Escape From Tarkov, director Joe Ziegler believes that the title can co-exist with others in the genre. In an interview with GamesRadar, Ziegler spoke about wanting to offer a polished extraction shooter experience that helps more players enter the genre.
According to Ziegler, Bungie is making Marathon with the idea of providing “a new and interesting experience that really helps you get to the heart of why you enjoy the other extraction shooters that you’re playing.” This means that the studio is trying to take out some of the jankier parts that the genre is known for and allow players to get to the “survival storytelling” of the genre at a faster pace.
“But really, I think a big opportunity for us is everybody who’s dabbled in extraction shooter games, have seen what it could offer, but they just couldn’t get through a lot of the cruft,” Ziegler said. “We are hoping to make it more approachable to that group, where they can get past that cruft and into the survival storytelling a little bit faster and a little bit better. Basically, everything they’re hoping an extraction shooter gives them from a tension standpoint, from a survival standpoint, is there without trying to relearn how to play a game.”
Marathon‘s gameplay director, Andrew Witts, also spoke about making the genre more accessible through the upcoming title. In the interview, he speaks about making the game simple enough that you can introduce new players to the genre by just giving them the controller, while also balancing that aspect with the depth of gameplay that extraction shooters are known for.
“It’s the easiest way to give the controller to a friend and be like, ‘We can play this game,'” said Witts. “There’s not a [huge] amount of explanation to get in there. That’s kind of what the Bungie action game is, you can give it to somebody else and have that feeling, so you could share that experience a bit better without being like, okay, let me tell you a whole new novel way to play.
“We’re really trying to make sure that it’s really approachable. The action fantasy of the gameplay is really easy to understand. You know, when you press a button, you’re like, oh, that felt really good, and I really like this.”
In the same interview, Ziegler also spoke about how Marathon will not be taking the place of Destiny for the studio. Rather, the title is purely focused on its PvEvP design. Ziegler also mentions that he wouldn’t recommend Marathon to fans of Destiny‘s PvE content like raids. Rather, the title is being designed for fans who enjoy PvP in Bungie’s games.
“I think part of it is we don’t expect Marathon to become Destiny 3. Our goal is not to basically make a new product that replaces Destiny 2,” said Ziegler We believe Destiny 2 has a future, and the team working on it has been working really hard to understand what players’ needs are.”
“But if you like Destiny, and you happen to like a lot of PvP sandbox experiences, and those are other games that you play, then we think that Marathon could be something very exciting for you.”
Marathon is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on September 23. For more details, check out the gameplay overview. At launch, the title will feature three maps and six Runners.
